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If you and your team work in the aerospace industry, you know how unique of an experience it can be. There are many individual challenges that differentiate our industry, from government regulation to safety standards and a variety of customer types. There are also challenges that come from working in any B2B industry, like longer, more involved sales cycles. We decided to share some aerospace sales tips that have helped us in the past.

1. Know the Difference Between B2B and B2C Selling

One of the key differences between B2B and B2C sales is the structure that comes along with selling to a business. When working with a purchasing agent, or any representative from other companies, it’s important to remember that they have a number of stakeholders to report to. B2B also allows for multiple touch points over a much longer sales cycle, instead of a “one and done” like B2C sales. Keep in mind that these customers are much more knowledgeable about your business sector and the options available to them. Aerospace customers are especially well-informed, and it’s important to adhere to their needs when conducting a sale.

2. Build Positive Relationships with MRO Customers

A huge advantage that aerospace companies have when pushing products to market is the existence of MRO (Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul) customers. These organizations are growing in quantity and size every day, and represent great opportunities for business. These companies rely entirely on their equipment being up and running, so they’re always looking for quality products and support services. A strong relationship with an MRO company should result in repeat business over the years and a devoted customer.

3. Communicate with your Marketing Department

In aerospace, digital marketing can often be overlooked as a positive source of leads. Make sure that you communicate well your marketing department and are handling new leads properly. How is your website being used, and what can you do to make it work for you? This is a great discussion to have with marketing and add input based on sales goals. In aerospace sales, any new leads can quickly become repeat customers.

4. Work for Your Customer Base

Finally, the best way to succeed in any sales environment is to create positive relationships with your customers. Try to establish rapport with your customers by introducing yourself and providing personalized interactions. Listen to the concerns of your customers, and do your best to identify with the pain points they face. Are you doing everything you can to see things from their point of view? The focus of aerospace sales should be solving the problems of your customers.

If you keep these four points in mind, you should see continued success from your sales department. What techniques do you employ to keep your team strong? Any general sales tips for us? Tweet us @AvtronAerospace or leave us a comment below.

One of the best things you can do to make sure your business will succeed is to make sure that you’re using the right tools. This might be engineering software for your design team, a CRM for your sales team, or a number of job boards for your HR team. Below, we reviewed three of our favorite B2B marketing tools and share a bit about how to use them.

Trello

Trello is a card-based web application that can be customized to suit the needs of your team. Project management, team collaboration, and file storage are among the most common uses.

Any Trello account consists of a series of lists, which contain movable cards. The entire system is extremely customizable, and list entries can be dragged-and-dropped around to different lists. Cards allow you to attach a description, images, documents, or other files. You can collaborate by tagging team members, setting a due date, adding a check list, and more. All of these features are contained within one card entry on one list. A list can contain as many cards as you’d like, each with all of the power described above.

How can your business use Trello?

Trello can be used for any number of things, most notably project management and group collaboration. Trello allows you to create teams, and assign different team members to different boards. This way, you can all keep files, tasks, and attachments in one place for easy access and cooperation. Trello gives you the freedom to decide what use benefits your business the most.

In the simplest way, you can use Trello as a personal to-do list. Trello allows you to keep all of your tasks in one place, without having to download any software or pay for anything. You simply login online and you’re all ready to go. The platform is excellent for people who like to visualize their work load, and is a great replacement for sticky notes. We regularly create cards with the title of a project, and include a checklist within the card for the specifics. One example of this might be a card titled “Blog,” with a checklist that includes items like conducting an interview with an engineer, doing the write up, and submitting the post for approval. All of your team members can see what you’re working on and contribute seamlessly.

The best thing about Trello is that its completely free. There are some business-class functions that require a purchase, but everything you’d use daily is free of charge.

Starting out with Trello

What’s cool about starting up with Trello is that they provide you with a Tutorial board, containing the same lists and cards you’d be using on your own. This tutorial board teaches you interactively how to use the tool, like how to create lists, boards, cards, checklists, and how to involve team members. It’s all right there.

Ready to get started? You can create a free account with Trello on their website.

What is Teamup?

Group communication is one of the most difficult challenges large companies face, especially when planning events. Without the right tools in place, fostering communication between members of your team can be a huge hurdle.

One of our favorite tools at Avtron is the web app Teamup. A common problem we faced when planning tradeshows was coordination among members of our sales and marketing team. There are so many details involved that relying entirely on email was insufficient. Trying to keep everyone on the same page with staffing, supplies, and logistics made for a huge headache in the days before the show.

How does Teamup work?

This is where Teamup comes in. Teamup allowed us to create one place to hold our entire tradeshow planning process.

Teamup allows you to create a number of color-coded “calendars” within your larger collaborative calendar. We use each color to represent a different member of our team. This way, we know who created the entry on the calendar and who’s responsible for doing the footwork on arrangements.

Teamup also reduced the number of surprises that come around the few weeks right before a show. All the details are easily accessible, and you won’t need to dig through months of back-and-forth emails. The “Notes” section of every calendar entry lets us put information about our shipping and staffing needs, which everyone can edit. There’s also a free space under the “About” section where we put a checklist of items to cover in the event description.

Finally, the two best things about Teamup are the price and the ability to access calendars. Teamup is free, and instead of a login system, it uses a system of public links for it’s users. Administrators get their own link for editing users, settings, and account management. The administrator can also give out links with specific roles, like modifier or reader, to their team. In the case of lost links, the administrator can recover the links using their email address on Teamup’s website.

Google Analytics

Ask any digital marketer what tools they absolutely can’t live without, and Google Analytics will no doubt be one of them. No other tool provides such comprehensive metrics for online performance as Google Analytics, and Google adds new features all the time. Best of all, like many other Google apps, Analytics is free.

What is Google Analytics?

Google Analytics is an online application, created by Google, which tracks a plethora of information about your website’s visitors. When you sign up, you’re given a snippet of JavaScript code to insert onto your website. Once you’ve put the “tracking code” onto your site, you will start to have access to information like pageviews, sessions, bounce rate, and the average time spent on the page.

Once you’re comfortable with the basics, you can start to use some of the more complex features of Analytics. Some more advanced options include conversion analysis, assigning “goals” to different site actions, and viewing what users search for on your site. It’s a very powerful application.

How can your business use Google Analytics?

Google Analytics helps you optimize your website for your visitors, and find out which of your online marketing programs are successful. If one blog post or landing page is getting much more attention than others, Analytics can help you determine why and how to duplicate that success. If you use eCommerce on your website, you can use Analytics to track the pages and items that are converting most. Additionally, you can find out what time of the week, month and year are busiest for your website, and plan high-value content appropriately.

Does your business test aircraft components for flight worthiness? If so, it’s likely that you’re familiar with standard test equipment and it’s software. Three of the most common questions that our service engineers run into from software customers are: Why should I update my software? How do I know when it’s time to update my software? And how do I do it? We try to answer each of those questions in this article.

Component Maintenance Manuals

It probably helps to have a bit of background regarding why software needs to be updated at all. When the manufacturer of an aircraft component makes an update to it’s Component Maintenance Manual (CMM), the equipment used to test it must also reflect this change. It should be easy to tell which CMM your software is written to. In the header files of any software from Avtron, for example, there will be an indicator stating the CMM number, CMM version, and CMM date of that software. If this doesn’t match up with the most up-to-date CMM from the component manufacturer, you’re due for an update.

CMM Changes

Changes to a CMM can range from minor to extensive changes in testing procedures. New CMMs may come with new testing software, bug fixes, improved processes, more detailed instructions, or any combination of these. Avtron always recommends that you test to the most current CMM. This will ensure that you are following all the latest and greatest testing procedures.

Another important note about Component Maintenance Manuals is that they include a standard troubleshooting guide for your equipment. New CMM versions may come complete with updated or improved guides, which will help your engineers if they run into issues. Newer editions of troubleshooting guides also reflect any new problems that the manufacturer has observed or fixed since the last CMM revision.

Staying Up To Date

How will you know when the CMM for a given flight component is updated? Well, that part gets complicated. Every company has a different process detailing how to handle the communication of CMM updates. Some manufacturers will notify you with regularity, others may only notify you when a change is made, and some still may not notify you at all. Your business’ quality department should have a standard procedure in place to ensure that your software remains up to date.

So what should you do when you find out that your CMM is not up to date? If you’re an Avtron customer, the process is pretty simple. All you need to do is contact our support engineers using the new portal on our website. The portal allows you to submit your information and receive an assigned case number from our support group. The system will also send you an email confirmation and alert our engineers of your request. Our team will then reach out to you to determine the extent of work required on your equipment.

Hopefully, this article answered any questions you may have had regarding software updates on aviation test equipment. Can you share any success stories or useful advice from your experiences? Leave a comment below or tweet us @AvtronAerospace.

One frustrating thing that all manufacturers have to deal with eventually is shipping troubles. Getting your products and supplies from one place to another can be a major hurdle if you and your customers aren’t on the same page. That in mind, we created this guide for Avtron’s customers, taking into account some of our most frequently asked questions.

Business Information

It is very important to make sure that Avtron’s information is correct on any shipping documents you’re using. One of the best things you can do to ensure a simple and effective shipment is including our proper company name, address, phone, and fax number on your documentation. This makes sure that your package gets to us, it’s delivered to the right person, and no revisions will need to be made on paperwork down the road. In case you need it, that information is listed below.

Avtron Aerospace Inc.

7900 E. Pleasant Valley Road, Independence, Ohio 44131

Phone: 216-750-5152

Fax Number: 216-750-5107

International Customers

One of the most important things to know when shipping repair orders to Avtron from outside the USA is that you will need to fill out and include a Declaration for Free Entry of Returned American Products form. Our correct HS Code to go on this form is 9801.10. Without this form, there could be some headaches from US Customs when trying to get your repairs to or from Avtron. It’s important to note that if there are fees incurred due to paperwork not being completed, or provided when products are sent to us, we forward those charges back to the customer.

As always, we’re here to help. If you’re ever unsure about how to fill out this documentation, we’re happy to review and advise at RMA@AvtronAero.com.

Repairs

If you’re sending us a repair order, it’s helpful to take out an RMA number in advance. You can do this on our RMA page here. This not only helps us but also gives us information about you and your request before your packages arrive to Avtron . Our online RMA system will notify us that you’ve made a request, assign you a case number for your reference, and will send you automated emails along the way as we make progress on your repair. This RMA number will even be included on your packaging for simple identification when your materials come back to you.

Shipping Details

Make sure to bring it up to us if your order will involve a different billing and shipping location. A common example that we see is when our customers would like an order drop-shipped for them – ie sending orders directly to their customers for them. It’s important that this is clear up front to eliminate issues down the road.

Have any tips on how we can improve our processes? What works well for your customers? Let us know in the comments below or on Twitter @AvtronAerospace.

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About Avtron

Since 1953, Avtron has been developing innovative test technology to support the needs of aircraft manufacturers, component OEMs, and MRO facilities worldwide. We are the preferred provider of generator and hydraulic test systems, automatic test equipment for electronics, ground support equipment, aircraft load banks, and custom test solutions used to test aircraft flight components.

Avtron Aerospace

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